A year after quadruple homicide, questions continue to linger in case

Investigators have at least two ‘persons of interest,’
a police captain said.

YOUNGSTOWN — Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask detectives how close they are to solving an execution-style quadruple murder.

Tuesday marks the first anniversary of a quadruple homicide on the South Side. Councilman Paul Drennan, D-5th, said a candlelight prayer vigil to remember the four victims will be at 6:30 p.m. that day outside 548 W. Evergreen Ave.

The bodies of a woman and three men in winter coats were discovered by a visitor around 10:30 p.m. inside a second-floor bedroom at 548 West Evergreen, a run-down 86-year-old house. The victims — Anthony M. Crockett, 23; Christopher D. Howard, 24; Marvin E. Boone, 19; and Danielle Parker, 22 — had all been shot in the head and body.

There was no discernible forced entry, police said.

The three-bedroom house, with assorted hues of garish wall paint in every room, was apparently being readied for renters. Crockett and Parker had been staying there, according to Vindicator files.

Records show it had been purchased about three weeks before the shootings, but not by any of the victims.

On Jan. 29, 2007, the small southeast bedroom, with a view of the street, held three couches. First officers at the scene found two dead men lying on separate couches and the third man sprawled on the floor in front of the third couch. The dead woman, curled in a fetal position, lay face down in a corner.

Today, the vacant house is empty of furniture.

Wind whips in through broken windows. The front door is ajar. A wheelchair sits in the living room. The trash-filled detached garage is wide open. The house is not on the city’s demolition list, according to John Rossetti, housing and demolition inspector for the city.

Bloodstains are still visible on the bedroom floor cluttered with papers, shoes, clothing, fast-food cups, a cereal box, empty soda and malt liquor bottles, a food-encrusted bowl and much more.

Crutches lean against a wall. An empty curved magazine from an assault rifle lies near the door.

Amid the jumble is a latex glove left by an investigator.

Over the past 12 months, detectives followed a lot of leads and have a better picture now of what happened that night, said Capt. Kenneth Centorame, chief of detectives. The case has produced at least two “persons of interest,” he said, declining to offer details for fear of jeopardizing the ongoing investigation.

“Yes, I think the case will be solved, but I can’t give you a time frame,” he said. “There’s not a week goes by that someone in the community doesn’t ask about the case.”

Questions come from victims’ family and friends, reporters and others, he said.

Early on, retaliation for the Nov. 3, 2006, daylight shooting death of 23-year-old Martwain J. Dill emerged as a possible motive for the quadruple homicide. A feud between former friends raged over transportation of drugs from Georgia to Youngstown, police have said.

A month before Dill was killed, marijuana charges against him were dropped in Decatur, Ga., at the same time Anthony Crockett and Andre Bailey accepted plea bargains and probation in the case, according to Vindicator files. Gary Crockett, Anthony Crockett’s first cousin, had been in Georgia but was not charged.

An assistant county prosecutor said in court last month that bad blood existed because Dill had agreed to testify against his friends in the drug case. Gary Crockett, 30, and two others have been convicted of Dill’s murder.

Anthony Crockett, meanwhile, was the target of gunfire before his death. On Jan. 1, 2007, the car he was in was shot at; he told police he was either hit in the lower right leg or a previous gunshot wound started bleeding. At the hospital, police confiscated crack cocaine, marijuana, $590 and a bulletproof vest, reports show.

His grandmother, Queenie Crockett of Youngstown, said this past week that he had called her from the hospital and asked that she pray with him.

“I prayed with him on the phone. It’s so sad, I didn’t see much of him,” she said. “He said he’d bring his kids over about two weeks before he got killed but he never made it.”

Crockett said she had not heard anything new about the investigation into her grandson’s death and was glad to learn from a reporter that detectives are making progress.

“He was real meek when he was around me and always trying to help his mother,” Crockett said. “He was always a good child; I don’t know what he did on the streets — that was kept hidden from me.”

It’s possible that Crockett was the intended victim that night a year ago, Centorame said, but the lifestyles of Howard and Boone, both of whom also had criminal records, have to be considered, too. Parker, Crockett’s girlfriend, had no criminal record.

Anthony Crockett, Howard and Boone were likely involved in a drug enterprise, not necessarily selling at the street level but in the distribution end of it, Centorame said. Such distribution networks, he said, always attract those intent on theft of money or “product.”

Centorame said the result is often street justice. Sometimes it’s a house shot up and the neighbors, not the victims, report it to police.

“In a lot of cases, usually gangs or drugs involved, we’ll have a homicide then a retaliation homicide,” Centorame said. “We can tell at the crime scene — we go to talk to witnesses and they don’t have anything to say.”

From tributes in The Vindicator, Crockett had attended The Rayen School, where he was a member of the basketball team. He loved to play basketball and had a record company, Get Doe Boyz Entertainment. He left behind three sons and a daughter.

The mother of Crockett’s children, Nykisha Townsend, 25, said she tells her children that their father is in heaven with Grandma. Her youngest, Kryslynn Annthonnie Mar-kye was born after her father’s death.

Townsend said she couldn’t stop calling detectives for the first few months after Crockett’s death. “I’d call all the time,” she said. “It would keep me up all night.”

Now she tries to focus on her children. She has enrolled in nursing school. “It makes you rearrange your whole life,” she said.

Christmas is the hardest, Townsend said. Crockett used to bring the children so many presents.

“He was my everything,” she said. “He was a great person and a great father. He would do anything for the kids.”

Boone attended Life Skills and enjoyed rapping and basketball. He also played football for The Sons of Thunder Little Football League. He left behind a son.

No personal information was found in Howard’s obituary, and no obituary was found for Parker, who left behind a daughter.

Anyone with information about the quadruple homicide is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (330) 746-CLUE. Rewards are offered for information that leads to arrest and indictment.